Travel by Books (Mostly) About Food…

Posted by
Diane Pohl Minott
on May 09, 2018

(Mostly) About Food…

by Diane Pohl Minott

Travel by Books

On one
particularly cold and dreary spring day, of which there have been so many, I
headed to The New Kitchen store to pick up a few essentials and to check out
what’s new because there ALWAYS seems to be something new in stock. I am an unapologetic collector of cookbooks,
especially those from other regions, and I regularly check out Phyllis’s
shelves as she has titles I don’t find anywhere else.

Gotta Go
There

One of the
first books to catch my eye fit perfectly with this month’s theme of armchair
travel, The New Wine Country Cookbook.
Who wouldn’t want to visit California’s
wine country? Images immediately come to
mind of leisurely lunches on sun-dappled terraces overlooking the
vineyards. Died-and-gone-to heaven local
food served by locals who can tell you where everything is sourced and which
wine to pair with it. This book deserves
some more of my attention. Haven’t been
to the CA wine country, but I gotta go.

I bought Farmers
in Lake Country by Loren Schaum who grew up in Elkhart County
and wrote about many of the food producers in the area. She includes a LOT of recipes, many of which
are international in theme. I was really
impressed by the variety and sophistication of the recipes, including Thai
Shrimp Stew, Duck and Black Eyed Pea Cassoulet, Eggplant Stuffed with Spiced
Ground Lamb, and one I have to try, Chocolate Pumpkin Marble Cake.

Best of all,
you get a feel for the local food producers through profiles and photos and an
excellent list of area and national resources for such foods as turtle meat,
pheasant, and goose. This book is a
treasure. And you can buy the herbs and
spices you need while you’re at the store.

I’m a sucker
for diners. There’s barely a week that
goes by that I don’t watch at least one episode of Diners, Drive-Ins, and
Dives. Guy Fieri has the best job
ever! So, I had to take a look at Cafe
Indiana.

If you have
an interest in diners with verified “good home cooking” and charm, this is the
book for you. It provides
recommendations in small towns under 10,000 in six tourist regions with
traditional ambiance and local flavor.
If you live in Indiana
or travel through every now and then, you’ll find unpretentious gems galore. Some selections are profiled in depth, others
have a few lines dedicated to them, but all sound like they’re worth a
visit. I have added a few to my
must-visit list even though they’re a good drive away. Summer’s coming. It’s always nice to have a few pre-planned
road trips.

Note: This book does not seem to have been updated
since it was first published. I did a
quick online search of a random ten cafés from the book, and they are all still
in operation. Obviously, it pays to
search a particular restaurant before you start salivating and head out the
door.

In checking
my own cookbook collection, I selected Kaukasis by Olio Hercules (Love
the name!). Some cookbooks transport,
and this one does. My husband and I
lived in Georgia for 4-1/2
years and Azerbaijan for two
years, and I’ve spent a few weeks in Armenia. I know a thing or two about cooking in the Caucasus. I’ve
yet to try a recipe from the book, and I do hope they prove to be a reliable
representation of traditional cooking, which the people of that region take
extremely seriously.

As an
example, I was speaking with a Georgian colleague about venues for a business
dinner. She recommended a restaurant
because “the cooking there tastes just like my mother’s.” I inquired if that was the finest compliment
she could pay a restaurant and she answered in the affirmative. While I was pondering that for a moment, she
asked if I went to restaurants where the food tasted like my mother’s. “Uhhhh…..no,” I replied, the cultural chasm
too great to explain in the time we had.

But the names
and the beautiful pictures prompt a host of memories, all of them good. Recipes for kinkali (meat dumplings), Adjaran
khachapouri (cheese bread with a baked egg on top), and fermented jonjoli
(bladdernut buds) beckon to be attempted even knowing that local ingredients
are no match for the flavors of the ancient Caucasus. More will be said in future blogs about
Georgian cuisine. Of the 100 or so
nationalities in the former Soviet Union,
there is little debate about which cuisine is the finest.

On Thursday,
May 3, The Northwest Indiana Food Bank unveiled its new facilities in Merrillville. With 72,000 square feet (an increase of
60,000 square feet over their current location), they have plans tor the
following: increased space for more
volunteers, community garden, café for culinary job training, community meeting
space, and 5,000 square feet of cold storage.
Their new capacity will be 18 million (no typo) meals per year.

The Food Bank
has raised $2.5 million of the $4.0 million needed, and the first $100,000 of
donations received by May 18, will be matched by corporate donors.